Chapter 5 - Kazimir
I can feel the music in my chest when I walk into the club. It pulses through my body like a living thing. Immediately, I’m alive with it. Inspired by it.
A smile creeps over my lips as I glance around the room, taking in the busy scene. The place is packed. I haven’t been here lately; I haven’t been anywhere, really, and I was starting to get cabin fever. Too many nights stuck in that mansion with everyone else and all their issues.
I don’t have time for it.
Maria is cute. Something nice to look at.
But Joseph and Artur want to rip each other’s throats out, and not a moment goes by that they aren’t arguing about something or other.
It’s driving me crazy.
My usual go-to when I need to wind down is to go dancing. To find a beautiful woman, have a laugh, take her home, and release all this pent-up energy building inside me.
The barman waves and smiles when I get close.
“Kaz, where you been? It’s so quiet here without you,” he says over the music.
“Busy, man. But I could do with a drink. And make it a double.”
Leaning against the counter, my eyes keep drifting over the room, looking for the most beautiful specimen. I don’t come here for mediocre. I want the girl all the other guys have been trying and failing to get all night. The bitchy, full of herself, too beautiful for anyone else girl.
That’s the one I chase. And I always get her. No matter how hard she tries to resist.
“I heard a rumor you got married,” the barman says, laughing as though it can’t possibly be true. He sets my drink down in front of me and I grimace. The last thing I want is for people to be talking about my marriage, that bullshit arrangement to get the others into an alliance.
Fuck. I don’t know. Did I make a mistake?
“Well?” he huffs, impatiently. “Is it true?”
I smirk, throwing him a devilish smile. “Sometimes it’s good to let rumors live their own lives, become their own creatures,” I shrug, staying vague so I don’t have to answer him.
He shakes his head. “The day you get married is the day I keel over dead behind this bar!” he laughs louder.
He should be careful what he wishes for.
“Keep that bottle on ice for me. I’ll be back for another soon,” I tell him.
He nods in acknowledgement and leaves to help another customer. I turn toward the dance floor to continue scouting.
There are plenty of gorgeous women here. Who the fuck even cares if she isn’t the hottest one tonight. I need release. It’s been way too long. Almost a week? More? Fuck, it’s the longest I’ve ever gone. I scoff, chuckling at myself.
A cute little brunette grins at me, and I wink. She bites her lip and flutters her lashes, turning her back on me as she wiggles her hips on the dance floor.
I watch her for a while, but she’s a little too skinny for my liking. I want hips I can grab. An ass that shakes when I pound into her from behind.
Maria slips into my thoughts. Her ass would shake, that’s for sure.
I could slap it and send satisfying ripples over her thighs.
Fuck. Don’t get distracted now.
I down my drink and grab another from the bar. I’m clearly not drunk enough to relax.
“Hi,” a sweet little voice coos at me.
“Hi, darling,” I reply, smooth as ever. My eyes trace over a big-busted blonde in a pink dress. Much more my style. Too much filler, though. But who cares. I can fuck her from behind, and I won’t even have to look at her face.
“Are you here with someone?” she asks.
I cock my head to the side and scan her body. “I could be here with you,” I say blandly.
She giggles, and I’m already bored. Too cliche. Too needy. Maybe I should take her to the back room and fuck her anyway.
I sigh heavily, pushing my hand through my hair and groaning.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she asks.
“I just realized I have other plans,” I lie, turning away from her and walking to the other side of the club, slowly meandering through the crowd and looking for something else.
A redhead in a red dress.
A blonde in a black dress.
A blonde in a red dress.
Why does this all seem so boring tonight?
Maria would probably love to be bent over the sofa and fucked until she couldn’t breathe. She must be so bored at home.
Dammit.
Why does she keep slipping into my thoughts? And why is every single girl in here too bland for me tonight?
Because you’re married. And you have an alliance to respect. Fucking any of these girls would be a problem.
Whatever, I can keep it a secret.
But as I lean against the bar near the VIP section, I still can’t get Maria out of my thoughts.
Ye. This isn’t working.
“Fuck’s sake,” I growl, putting my empty glass on the bar counter and storming toward the exit with a somber mood hanging over me. I just wanted to relax. But something feels off tonight. It’s all the wrong girls. Or I came to the wrong club.
Whatever.
Go home. Go to bed. I don’t particularly care at this point; I just want to get out of here.
I wave to the barman. He throws me a quizzical look.
“I was instantly bored,” I laugh, shrugging.
He shakes his head. “See you around, Kaz,” he smiles.
When I step out of the club and into the streets outside, the heat hits me like a wall.
Heavy, lung-burning heat that has been simmering since lunchtime.
Maybe I’ll go home and swim.
People are hovering around the entrance, waiting to be let in.
In my car, I turn the music up. I’ll keep the energy up even though the night was a failure. The music is always good. At least that part was fun.
Maria would’ve looked great on that dance floor with you.
Why the hell are my thoughts teasing me like this?
Is it because I’ve been stuck in a house with her for days?
Must be.
She is a foxy little kitten, though. A cute little baby bird with her sweet innocence.
I bet she’s a tiger in bed.
Even with the music so loud, I still hear the screeching tires as a car skids toward me.
Instinct has me accelerating, and I’m lucky I do, because whoever is in that car only just manages to nick the back bumper instead of wrapping me around their hood.
Gunfire erupts, and bullets smack into the car door.
“Fuck!” I shout as one of them grazes right over my thighs. “Fucking armor-piercing bullets?” I scream, pushing my foot harder against the accelerator.
Someone’s got an attitude tonight, and I don’t like it.
The car behind me gives chase as I race down the main road, swerving past other vehicles. I’m grateful it’s so late, and the streets are quiet.
I’m also grateful I know this city better than anyone. Because it’s my city, I own these streets.
Taking a sharp turn, I leave the main road and my car scrapes against the side of an alleyway. Too fast, but I made it anyway.
The car behind me isn’t so lucky. They turn too late and clip the corner and roll.
Perfect.
The chase ends just as quickly as it started.
Just to be safe, I take a few more tricky turns and make sure no one else is following me before I get back onto the main road.
The sign on the street corner says Montrose Beach. I take the turn, about five minutes from home.
My leg is sticky with blood, and the car smells like iron.
Fuck, I hope it’s not deep. I hope I don’t need stitches. Do I have duct tape at home?
Pulling into the estate, I park the car outside the front steps and turn the engine off. My heart is racing. I flick the light on in my car to examine the wound, and my leg is bleeding worse than I thought. The bullet sliced right across the top of my thigh, pretty deep.
Pushing the door open, I climb out and tug my shirt off, tying it tightly around the wound to try and stop the bleeding.
Stagger up the stairs to the front door. I cringe and groan in pain. Shit. That hurts.
Joseph would definitely have a first aid kit, but the last thing I want to do is tell him that I got attacked and injured. It’s a weakness. The alliance wouldn’t like it.
I’ll scratch around and see what I can find without alerting anyone else.
Again, I’m grateful that it’s late and the house is quiet.
There’s a storage space behind the kitchen, in the pantry, where I vaguely remember seeing first aid supplies.
I hurry there, blood dripping down my leg, mostly caught by the jacket, thank goodness, so it’s not all over the marbled floor.
I almost slip as I round the corner into the kitchen.
Maria yelps in fright.
I catch myself before I react and lash out at her. Dammit, the last thing I need is a delicate female passing out when she sees the amount of blood I’m losing.
“Why is the light off?” I growl in a whisper.
“I was getting water, I don’t need a light,” she huffs.
Sighing heavily, I flick it on because I do actually need it.
“Oh my word, what happened?” she blurts out, horrified.
“Nothing, go to bed,” I snap.
Maria scoffs and throws me a cocky little side-eye. Her pink cotton pajama shorts are patterned with little white bunnies. The cami matches. It's too fucking cute for words.
“Don’t tell me what to do. Besides, it looks like you might need some real help before you pass out and crack your skull on the edge of the kitchen counter,” she says boldly.
Her attitude and confidence take me completely by surprise.
She isn’t wrong. My head is definitely spinning.
“Yeah, well, we can’t always get what we want,” I mutter, holding on to the counter as I drag myself to the pantry.
“Just sit down, for crying out loud,” she huffs, pushing me onto one of the kitchen bar chairs.
Why isn’t she sobbing and completely freaked out by the blood? Why hasn’t she asked me how I got hurt? Why does she look as calm as a kitten?
I sit down, because if I don’t, I’m going to fall.
Maria is muttering when she walks away from me into the pantry.
She comes out carrying a first aid kit.
“Um…I need to cut your pants off, I think,” she says, pulling her mouth tight.
“Do whatever you want, little bird. Just don’t make it worse,” I say, curious about what exactly she plans on doing.
I watch her open the first aid kit on the kitchen counter and pull out a number of items. She brings the scissors over to me and slips the blade beneath the tear in my pants, cutting upward, then downward. I am now only wearing half a pair of pants.
Maria works methodically.
She cleans the wound, grabbing my hand and pressing it against my own leg when she leaves to get something else. “Push here. Apply pressure. Don’t let go, okay,” she says.
“Okay…how do you know how to deal with this? Why aren’t you crying?” I blurt out.
She snorts, a cute little sound that makes her blush.
“I did a few courses in first aid. And it’s not like my brother never came home covered in blood before,” she explains.
“So, you’ve done stuff like this. Obviously. I mean, you look like you know more than most of the people who have helped me in the past,” I laugh dryly.
“You need stitches,” she sighs.
“Fuck, I am not going to a hospital now. They ask so many questions. Is there duct tape in that bag?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not duct taping your leg. I’ll do the stitches if you can bite down on something,” she says, looking around the kitchen.
“I don’t need to bite down. My adrenaline is so high I can’t feel anything anymore.”
She giggles. “Lucky you. Then I'd better work fast,” she says, gathering the thread and curved needle.
My heart races, anxious as I watch her. But she’s brilliant.
“The first time I did this, I was fifteen,” she says as she stitches me up. “My brother came home with a massive cut over his eye. I had to work out what I was doing as I went. After that, I started taking classes and learned a lot more. Through experience and lessons.”
“So, I should thank your brother?” I chuckle.
She shrugs, looking up at me. Her eyes pierce into mine, and for a moment, everything else disappears. Hazel.
Little golden flecks that float in a pool of green and caramel.
She looks away, and I clear my throat, realizing my cock is stirring into action.
Now would be a really awkward time to get a hard-on.
“Almost done?” I ask abruptly.
“Almost. Just tying off the last stitch, then I’ll put a bandage over it.”
“I’m really tired,” I insist. “Need to lie down or something.”
“Just wait, dammit. I said I was almost done. I can’t let you leave half sorted out.”
I know other ways you can sort me out. Or make my pain disappear.
“At least my brother sat still when I had to stitch him up. It’s like you’ve got ants in your pants with the way you’re shifting around,” she mutters.
“What’s the deal with your brother and Artur?” I ask, looking for a distraction.
“Artur screwed my brother over. He did him wrong somehow. They had a massive falling out, and I think Artur is bitter about it. I don’t know what happened. But I know Artur messed up somehow.”
I nod, watching her. The scent of her hair is teasing me now as she moves a little closer and has me lift my leg so she can wrap it in a clean bandage. Her hands skim over my skin and heat streaks through me.
“I’d like to see you doing this in a nurse's outfit,” I chuckle, doing what I always do to ease tension. Flirting.
“Mm,” she says, not looking at me.
“You’d look damn good in one. I reckon you’d look good in anything. You have that kind of body,” I say.
She glances at me with her nose scrunched as though I’ve said something that doesn’t make sense.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“What kind of body is that?” she asks, also confused.
“A beautiful one. You’re gorgeous. Fuck, you’re really sexy, don’t tell me you don’t know it,” I laugh.
Her cheeks flush bright red, like rose petals, and she can’t look at me. But her lips part as she takes a soft breath, and I watch her chest lift in slow motion. When her hand brushes over my leg this time, it’s even softer than before.
Maria’s breathing has changed. Her body language has shifted. She’s more aware of me now, and I of her.
“Um, that should do it,” she says quickly, tucking the end of the bandage into itself. “Take some painkillers. We can change the bandage in the morning.” She steps away from me, biting her lip.
My cock is stirring again.
“Goodnight,” Maria says suddenly, then spins and hurries from the kitchen.
I stare after her for a long time, wondering how the hell this girl managed to pique my interest so intently when a club full of women couldn’t even entice me.
Sliding off the chair, I sigh heavily, shake my head, and pick up the remaining first aid bits and pieces.
I still don’t want the others to find out, so I'd better clean up.
After that, I go to bed, still impressed with how well she handled it and how well she stitched me up.
I wonder what else she’s good at…